Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Diet

2023 Author: Wallace Forman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 12:25

Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Diet

There are no special dietary recommendations for inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. Primarily one should orientate oneself on a balanced mixed diet, which corresponds to the Austrian food pyramid. Basically, it is important to provide the body with sufficient energy and nutrients through nutrition. Drinking solutions or nutrient solutions can help during acute relapses…

navigation

• Continue reading
• more on the subject
• Advice, downloads & tools
• Dietary goals in IBD
• Adjustments in diet
• Enteral and parenteral nutrition

Dietary goals in IBD

According to the recommendations of the Austrian Society for Gastroenterology and Hepatology (nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease), the nutritional goals for IBD are as follows:

• To ensure an adequate nutritional status,
• To reduce and reduce symptoms caused by any intolerance or allergies independent of IBD to food intake
• Directly decrease inflammatory activity.

Adjustments in diet

For patients with stenoses (constrictions in the intestines), a reduced dietary fiber content can be helpful. In Crohn's disease with extensive infestation of the small intestine, foods rich in oxalic acid such as rhubarb or chard should be avoided as this can promote the formation of kidney stones.

If the patient also suffers from an intolerance such as lactose intolerance, this should be taken into account in the composition of the diet.

Further information is available from:

• The Austrian food pyramid
• Food intolerances and allergies

Enteral and parenteral nutrition

Enteral or parenteral nutrition is possible in order to relieve the bowel in its work during acute attacks, to maintain a symptom-free period for as long as possible and to avoid malnutrition. However, these two forms of nutrition are not used in principle for every patient. Enteral nutrition means drinking solutions that have a special composition of nutrients, vitamins and minerals. They are readily available to the body and also easily digestible (“astronaut food”). Parenteral nutrition bypasses the digestive tract by introducing a nutrient solution directly into the bloodstream through a vein access.

Especially in children and adolescents, especially those with stunted growth, the therapy increasingly relies on enteral nutrition, as it has the same effect as conventional drug therapy. This also avoids the strong side effects of steroid therapy. Parenteral and enteral nutrition are used in therapy, for example before / after intestinal operations, for fistulas, short bowel syndrome or intestinal obstruction or in adults who suffer from certain intolerances or, for example, refuse drug treatment and are malnourished or undernourished. Probiotics can be helpful in maintaining symptom-free phases (remission). Evidence of this is only available for ulcerative colitis.